


Pepperoni Funnel Cake and Curly Fries

by waferkya



Series: The Cake is a Lie [4]
Category: Basketball RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:30:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Juan Carlos is a workaholic but Pau has the cure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pepperoni Funnel Cake and Curly Fries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [insavagetown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/insavagetown/gifts).



> I'm terrible at dedications so suffice it to say that this is all completely for Alex's birthday, she makes me all warm and fuzzy inside and I'm so really glad I know her. ♥

Pau is starting to feel a bit silly, sitting behind the counter with his nice slacks and the pressed shirt and the expensive cardigan in a dark, rich green that says I’m a classy motherfucker but I can do festive just fine. The outfit is not the problem—it’s a great outfit, thank you very much, the cardigan brings out his eyes oh so very nicely and the slacks do wonders to his backside, and it’s not at all stiff and formal so he’s still well within the boundaries of the dress code Juan Carlos called for the night, the _whatever you want, but please don’t come in here looking like a stuffed animal, and no ties_ policy.

Christmas Eve dinner in the shop has earned itself the title of tradition, but it’s not exactly fancy; it was just Juan Carlos and Vanessa at first, as they would come in to keep the café open and the ovens running _just in case_ —and there was always a case—, and they would’ve spent the evening together anyway so why even bother going back home. By the time Marc got hired, they’d dragged an old, worn-out couch in the kitchen.

So it’s a thing they do now—they open the shop on Christmas Eve in the morning and, after a day of what Pau assumed was basically lounging around behind the counter, nibbling unsold cakes and saving the life of one desperate last-minute customer or two, they all get to the back and celebrate. Marc goes because hey, his brothers and parents are in the States and he doesn’t like asking them to pay for his plane ticket and he would never go to grams’ on his own; Victor is tagging along this year because his folks decided to go ski in Galicia, and he stayed back to look after the dogs and finish this script he’s working on, and everyone knows it’s because of the guy he’s dating even though Victor hasn’t said a word.

Vanessa said her girlfriend Alba is coming too, and Ricky promised he’d drop by to have a taste of a bit of everything as soon as his parents let him free, because there’s no way he’s missing out on Juanki’s cooking—Juan Carlos rolled his eyes so hard he might’ve hurt himself, and Pau still has no clue what’s his deal with this Ricky kid anyway. Not that he’s jealous, of course.

So it’s Christmas Eve afternoon, more like evening already, and Pau came in early, almost an hour before the appointed time because he figured he could spend some more time hanging out with Juan Carlos, there’s no harm in that.

Except Juan Carlos has been slaving away in the kitchen all day, because apparently a billion people woke up this morning and suddenly realized that yeah, fuck, tomorrow’s Christmas.

It’s ridiculous, but business seems to be tenfold the usual and how is it possible that so many fucking people are buying things just now? Pau has a bit of a complex, okay, he doesn’t like to go into things unprepared so he usually has most of his Christmas-y things taken care of and wrapped up all nicely a week before the actual date—but these guys are unbelievable, they’ll be sitting around the table to eat in less than an hour and here they are, buying dessert for their families and trays of silly cupcakes to put into gift boxes.

“Humans,” Pau mumbles, a tinge of disdain making his voice sharper.

Behind him, Juan Carlos chuckles and shoves another tray of cookies into the display window—a pack of children instantly glue themselves to the glass, barely containing their drooling and tugging on their parents’ sleeves.

“Last minute clients are my favorite,” Juan Carlos says, adjusting the knot of his apron at the small of his back. “I also hate them.”

Pau laughs. “Yeah, I think I can see why.”

Juan Carlos’ mouth twists into a lopsided smirk; there’s a smudge of flour on his cheek and Pau reaches out to clean it up with his thumb. Juan Carlos blushes, just like Pau thought he would.

“I hope you like lasagna.”

 

Dinner is pleasant, better than Pau had expected; he is used to big, boring family gatherings where everyone wants to know everything about his girlfriend and how much money he made in the past twelve months, so the cheerful, relaxed atmosphere of a tableful of friends is a nice break of routine.

Marc makes fun of him all night, and in return, Pau pokes at Juan Carlos’ patience praising his cooking in as many words as he can think of, grinning from ear to ear every time Juan Carlos scoffs and mumbles a mantra of I’m-not-a-cook-I-simply-can-read-and-follow-a-recipe-that’s-hardly-newsworthy.

Pau finds himself sprawled rather comfortably on the couch, warm with the wine he’s been sipping all night, and he has an arm around Juan Carlos’ shoulders and they are a bit too close for polite society’s standards and Pau is already counting figures in his head, trying to calculate how much money he’d lose if he moved back home for good.

 

“Oh my God,” he says, and he drops the bags with the presents instantly, crossing the kitchen to run a hand up Juan Carlos’ back, finding the pulsepoint on his neck. “Are you okay?”

Of course he’s not okay, he’s shaking and his knuckles are snow-white where he’s gripping the edge of the table; his knees can’t be too solid either, because they buckle a little and Juan Carlos tilts to the side, bumping his shoulder into Pau’s chest.

“’m fine,” he mumbles, his eyes pressed shut and eyebrows drawn down in a frown; his lips are thin and pale and his skin is clammy under Pau’s fingers. “’m fine, promise.”

“Shut up, God, just breathe, in and out, c’mon,” Pau says, smoothing a hand to the back of Juan Carlos’ neck and drawing slow circles with his thumb. “Jesus, you’re insane.”

“Not,” Juan Carlos grunts, and his eyes flutter open just a little, he drags himself upright. “Just a bit tired.”

Pau’s laugh is humorless. “Ladies and gentlemen, the understatement of the century. Here,” he says, and he prods and pushes gently until the side of Juan Carlos’ leg hits the couch. “Sit down. Jesus Christ, you almost passed out.”

“Did not!” Juan Carlos whines feebly, but he does collapse on the couch with a deep sigh, tilting his head back; except he sits up right away, looking around with the kind of deer-in-headlights look of a mother who just lost her child. “Fuck, I need to get the cupcakes into the—  
”

“What was that? You need ten-twelve hours of sleep?” Pau says, and in the meantime he’s found the fridge; he takes out a bottle of water, fills up a big glass and then spoons some sugar in it. “Yup, I completely agree.”

“No, Pau, seriously—”

Juan Carlos is trying to get up even through the shaking knees and probably blacked-out vision, and Pau puts a hand on his chest, gently pushes him back down.

“No chance in hell,” he says softly, and with a small smile he offers the sugary water. Juan Carlos takes the glass, grumbling, and takes a tiny sip; Pau glares pointedly at him until he’s drunk a decent amount of water and a bit of color is back on his cheeks.

In the mean time, Vanessa has slipped into the kitchen and she’s been shoving trays of cupcakes into the oven; Juan Carlos glances worriedly at her.

“Just make sure you—”

“Drink your water, idiot,” she tells him, without even looking. “And then get the fuck home, you’ll ruin the batch if you fall asleep and fall in the oven.”

“The oven is way too small to fit m—”

“Pau,” Vanessa sighs, pushing the oven closed with her foot. “Can you take him home, please, and make sure he sleeps? I’d knock him out cold right where he is, but sleeping on that couch is murder.”

Pau doesn’t even try to hide his grin.

 

“It’s Christmas,” Juan Carlos grumbles, rubbing a hand on his face as they walk—very slowly—to the subway. “You should be with your brother, not—taking me home. Thanks. ’m sorry.”

Pau chuckles. “You’re rambling,” he says, amused. Juan Carlos shoots him a sideway look and almost stumbles off the sidewalk, but Pau catches him by the arm. “Careful there.”

“Sorry,” Juan Carlos mumbles again in a small voice. “Guess I’m r’lly tired.”

“You don’t say,” Pau teases, and doesn’t let go of him. “I wonder why. It’s not like you’ve been up thirty-six hours straight, baking for half of Barcelona and then cooking a full Christmas dinner on top of that.”

“And lunch,” Juan Carlos says as they carefully climb down the stairs to the station. He looks sheepish. “I did lunch, too, for t’day.”

Pau is one step ahead of him and stops, abruptly, to stare.

“Are you insane?” he asks, quite frankly. “Marc mentioned that you’re dedicated but I don’t think he knows what that means.”

Juan Carlos giggles, and his next step is even less steady. “You keep using that word,” he mumbles, and trying to sound solemn he ends up mashing all the words together in a sort of drunken slur. Pau should not find this adorable, but. “I don’t think it means what you think it means. Or was it—?”

“No, you got it right,” Pau says, and doesn’t fight back the smile that really, really wants to curl up his lips. He steadies Juan Carlos for the rest of the climb with a hand to the small of his back.

“Why don’t you sit down a bit,” Pau suggests when they reach the platform. Juan Carlos is this close to falling asleep on his feet, but he looks up and even through the sleepy fog in his eyes, he shakes his head.

“Train’s comin’ in a bit,” he says, trying and failing to point at the led screen indicating an incoming train in less than a minute.

Pau sighs, and wraps an arm around his shoulders—to keep him upright, of course; it has nothing to do with the sweet scent of cinnamon tangled in Juan Carlos’ hair, the warmth of his body, the pretty fan of his black eyelashes or the way his head is at the perfect height to rest on Pau’s chest. Juan Carlos mumbles incoherently and leans into him, closing his eyes.

When the train arrives, he stumbles into it and then he does take a seat; Pau settles to his right, standing even though the train is almost completely empty. An elder lady comes in, and Pau was sure Juan Carlos had nodded off already, but then he’s standing up abruptly and offering the lady his seat. She looks confused for a moment, because there’s approximately another fifty billion empty seats around them, and then she smiles a little.

“Long night, honey?” she asks, sweetly, and Juan Carlos mumbles something but she just waves him off. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty of seats.”

Pau pushes Juan Carlos back down with a gentle hand to his shoulder, and nods at the woman as she moves down the carriage a little, still looking amused; the train takes off and Pau watches as Juan Carlos’ head rolls back a little and he falls asleep in the empty space between two breaths.

 

Marc tried to draw him a crude map with directions to Juan Carlos’ place, but Vanessa had whipped out her phone and two minutes and twenty-six seconds later, he had a link to a Google Maps itinerary waiting in his inbox.

As he keeps a hand in the center of Juan Carlos’ chest to keep him upright during the elevator ride, Pau smiles to himself. This is the weirdest, most untraditional Christmas of his life and he likes it better than any other.

Juan Carlos, if he’s being honest, looks terrible. He’d probably look better if a train ran him over; he’s pale like a ghost, and the dark semi-circles under his eyes add a nice touch to the overall skeletal appearance; his eyelids are droopy and heavy, his shoulders hunched forward, and even though he’s thin like a twig you might snap in two without effort, from the way he drags his feet you’d guess he weighs a ton.

And under the black leather jacket, he’s still wearing yesterday night’s clothes—a threadbare Green Lantern t-shirt and faded light jeans, frayed at the hems—which smell mostly like the bakery, a cacophony of scents, sweet and sour and even spicy from dinner, but also like sweat and, under all that, something different, something masculine and unfamiliar that has Pau feeling antsy and slightly hungry.

Pau wants nothing more than to tuck him in bed and make him soup and then, when he’s feeling a bit better and has stopped shaking, make him take a shower, trim his beard a little, and then proceed to fuck him into next week.

_Sleep first_ , he reminds himself, and it takes him a moment to find the right key among the two dozens attached to Juan Carlos’ keyring.

Juan Carlos quietly follows into the apartment, but it doesn’t look like he realized where they are.

“Christ, baby, are you trying to kill yourself?” Pau mumbles, and he tugs Juan Carlos past the living room and into a hallway. He tries not to look around too much, because he already feels terrible about intruding.

“The Dark Side has cookies,” Juan Carlos says, words sticking together and to his tongue like they’re made of honey.

“You have cookies too, and you don’t look like much of a Sith to me,” Pau tells him, and then he stops in front of a door that’s slightly ajar, because it reveals something that looks like a bed. Pau pushes the door open and, yep, good call, there’s a big, unmade bed right there, or rather a mattress on the floor, and he doesn’t know if it’s meant to be that way, like one of those Japanese-style beds, or maybe Juan Carlos broke the structure and never bothered to buy a new one.

“Here we are,” he says anyway, and Juan Carlos lifts his head a little, seems relieved at the sight of the nest of sheets and pillows.

“Bed,” he mumbles, stumbling towards it. “My bed.”

And then he flops down on his face and with a sigh he falls asleep, arms akimbo and legs half off the mattress.

Pau rolls his eyes, his chest suddenly a very hot place, too tight for his heart; he squats down to take off Juan Carlos’ boots, then gently untangles the scarf from around his neck and even manages to pry off the jacket, with barely a sleepy whine from Juan Carlos.

He pets his hair for a while, making sure he’s really asleep and not just faking it so he can get up and sneak out the moment Pau is out of the door—Vanessa warned him; it’s happened in the past, apparently—and then with a sigh he gets up and leaves the room, pulling the door almost all the way closed behind him.

“Merry Christmas,” he murmurs to himself, his hands twisted in the soft material of Juan Carlos’ scarf.

 

When Juan Carlos wakes up, he’s not entirely sure where he is, and whether or not he still has a functioning right hand—it’s dead to him, and the only reason he knows they didn’t chop it off as he slept is because he can feel its knuckles digging into his stomach.

He rolls on his back, and mumbles in discomfort when the pins and needles start crawling their way up his arm.

“Jesus,” he murmurs, and he scratches his navel with his left hand, grateful that he at least still gets that.

He’s home, he realizes a moment later; he’s home and in his bed and he’s still wearing jeans and socks but he has no boots on. He doesn’t remember coming home, even less so kicking off his shoes, but all that apparently happened.

A quick glance to the alarm clock on his bedside table tells him it’s still Christmas, and it’s just past six in the afternoon. No wonder he’s so freaking hungry, he skipped lunch and his snack.

He drags himself upright, frowning at the slight pang of pain in his back, and toes off his socks, sighing when his naked feet touch the cold stone of his pavement.

“That’s nice,” he mumbles; he needs a shower and he needs food and he can’t decide which one should come first. He considers texting Vanessa, but then it occurs to him that he just left her alone taking care of the shop on Christmas, and even though she got a full night’s sleep last night and came in disgustingly late and disgustingly happy this morning, she might still be super angry—and if it’s not about the mutiny, then it will be about the fact that Juan Carlos was up working thirty-six hours straight again.

So, no contact with Vane until tomorrow.

Juan Carlos rubs a hand over his face.

From outside his room comes the clear clang of pans and pots colliding.

Juan Carlos frowns. There’s someone else in his home. He thinks of Vane for a split second, because they’ve lived out of each other’s pockets for so long that it’s basically a second nature for him to assume she’s always around; but he remembers that Vanessa hasn’t lived here for years, and he remembers Alba, and that the two of them had a romantic get-away planned that starts today, as soon as the shop closed, and ends whenever, which leaves—it leaves Marc, really, and a cold shiver runs down Juan Carlos’ spine because Marc in a kitchen is kind of like a children who’s been handed a gun and it might be loaded with candy but it might also be bullets.

Juan Carlos pulls himself up and as he makes his way out of the room and into the open-space kitchen, it hits him; Pau took him home, held him upright in the elevator and made sure he didn’t fumble past the yellow line and right into the subway tracks. Pau gave him awful sugary water and told him to breathe when he couldn’t remember how and he—he’s shoulders-deep inside Juan Carlos’ fridge, clearly amused by his spinning dressing-bottles tray.

Juan Carlos looks at him for a moment—he’s _shocked_ , he’s not studying the way Pau’s jeans fit snugly around his ass—and then clears his throat quietly.

Pau jumps, but he doesn’t hit his head on anything and when he turns around, he’s grinning to hide his embarrassment. Juan Carlos grins right back.

“Hi,” he says. “And, you know, thanks.”

“Oh, don’t mention it,” Pau waves him off. “I was—sorry I’m still here, I didn’t mean to intrude, but I, uh, I wanted to make sure you made a full recovery, let’s put it that way.”

Juan Carlos chuckles. “Vane told you to stick around and make sure I didn’t sneak back to work, more like.”

“I take it’s happened before,” Pau grins, then he notices Juan Carlos glancing at the pot sitting on the turned-off stove. “I was thinking about making some soup.”

“Thanks, seriously, I’m sorry you had to put up with all this,” Juan Carlos says; he goes to the fridge, which Pau had closed, and pulls open the freezer on the lower half. “I’m not always like this, I promise—well, not the fainting part at least. Jesus, I don’t even have enough food for dinner, I’m sorry.”

“We could order in,” Pau says, trying to be as casual as he can about the fact that he just invited himself over for the rest of the night. “The Pakistani guy at the pizza parlor around the corner is pretty friendly, and he said they’d be open all day.”

Juan Carlos freezes with his hand on the fridge’s handle. He looks up to stare at Pau, who’s maybe three feet away and looks suddenly very worried.

“You okay?”

“Jesus,” Juan Carlos whispers. “It’s Christmas. You had Tariq’s pizza for lunch on Christmas and I was sleeping and—Jesus, I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Pau says, laughing a little. “Marc came over—sorry about that too, by the way, he left maybe an hour ago and he says hi—so it’s not like I was alone, in fact, I was with family—and seriously, they make a mean deep-dish pizza, almost as good as Unos’ very own. Besides, they didn’t even let me pay because apparently you have an open tab there? I didn’t know they did tabs in pizza shops.”

Juan Carlos blinks, taking in the information; his first thought is that he and Pau have done an awful lot of apologizing, for two people who’ve known each other for a couple of days. The second is that, Jesus Christ, he needs a shower.

And the third thought—the third thought makes him blush all the way up to his hairline, and he rubs a hand through his beard (fourth thought: he needs to shave) while he pulls himself back together.

“Yeah, I go there often and they just—look—thanks,” he says, his shoulders sagging and he tries to put his heart into it as much as he can. Pau’s smile is warm and sweet and Juan Carlos has to look away. He grabs an apple from a fruit basket and washes it absently under the tap. “Look, do you mind if we have pizza again? I’d go for Chinese but I’m not sure they’re working.”

Pau shrugs. “I love pizza, it’s no problem at all. You have any preference? I can call while you shower.” Juan Carlos can’t help the little smirk that curls up the corner of his lip—Pau looks suddenly pained and he scrambles, “If you had in mind to take a shower, of course, I just assumed—I’m not saying—”

“Pau,” Juan Carlos chuckles, and he dries off the apple on his shirt. “I reek, I’m very nearly disgusting, it’s okay. I’ll go decontaminate myself and you can call Tariq and tell him I haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours and I have guests, he’ll know what to do. You can call Marc, too,” he adds, as an afterthought.

“Okay, yeah.”

Juan Carlos gives him a tiny, tight-lipped smile, because he’s fairly tired of all the thank-you’s and the I’m-sorry’s and the it’s-okay’s. He takes a big bite off the apple as he walks away, and even though he tries not to notice, he doesn’t miss the way Pau stares after him.

 

“Right on time, pizza just got here,” Pau says when he hears soft footsteps into the living room. He looks up from where he’s just finished setting the table—which is an overstatement, he simply found forks and knives and glasses and arranged the pizza boxes and put in a plate the frankly disturbing amount of fried goods that Tariq slipped him in a waxed-paper bag—and feels the blush creep over his neck and face. Juan Carlos is rubbing a towel through his hair, he’s wearing a t-shirt that’s even tighter and more battered than the one he had on before, another pair of light, snug jeans—he seems to own an indefinite amount of those—and he is, goodness gracious, barefoot. When he realizes Juan Carlos has also trimmed and probably combed his thick black beard, Pau starts suspecting that Santa might be real after all.

“Ngh, smells good,” Juan Carlos mumbles, and he throws the towel carelessly over the couch before walking up. “You didn’t have to, you know,” he says, gesturing to the table. Pau shrugs, trying not to stare at the sweet stretch of the shirt of Juan Carlos’ pecs. Bakery work apparently pays off more than a lifelong gym subscription.

“It’s fine, really. Seems like the least I could do.”

“The least you could—you do realize you more or less saved my life, yeah?” Juan Carlos says with a sweet grin, and he sits where his double-cheese deep-dish pizza is sitting.

Pau rolls his eyes. “You were passing out, not dying.”

“That’s why I said more or less,” Juan Carlos nods reasonably. He looks up. “Marc’s coming?”

Pau does his best not to blush or look too much like someone who’s lying right out of their teeth. “He had a previous engagement.”

Juan Carlos cocks an eyebrow, but he doesn’t say anything; he nods at Pau’s large pepperoni. “Good choice,” he says, and then they’re diving into their food, and none of them talks for a long while, but it’s not bad at all.

 

They end up on the couch, watching shitty reality television with the plate of fried everything—there’s French and curly fries in there, at least five different types of vegetables, tiny chunks of cheese that have been rolled in breadcrumb and then thrown into boiling oil, croquettes and rice balls and it’s so good Pau doesn’t even complain about cholesterol—between them. Juan Carlos explained this is not something he does often, it’s his special treat for the Holy Fuck That Was Seriously A Shitty Day And I Nearly Died, and Pau in turn frowned, worried that he even had to have a pick-me-up routine for the _days he nearly died_.

“How often does this happen?” he asks, nudging Juan Carlos’ knee with his foot. Juan Carlos shrugs, dropping a bright golden ball of something in his mouth.

“Once or twice a year? You saw how things get during the holidays.”

“Jesus fuck,” Pau mutters, and Juan Carlos grins, happy and carefree. He throws a leg over one of Pau’s, his bare foot hanging loose, sometimes kicking lightly at his calves, and Pau puts his hand on the knee because he either does that or he pulls Juan Carlos in by his leg and licks the taste of melting cheese right out of his mouth.

He doesn’t even realize he started rubbing circles into the side of Juan Carlos’ knee until Juan Carlos mumbles under his breath and shifts a tiny bit—Pau’s hand is more around his thigh than the knee, now.

Pau doesn’t dare looking over. He’s spent the entire day in Juan Carlos’ home and he tried not to snoop around but it’s not like he could’ve been sitting on the couch with his eyes closed—besides, Marc is Marc and Marc defers to a very loose definition of privacy. So, Pau has seen the photos pinned to the wall in the room down the hallway that only has a blue beanbag chair and a shit-ton of books lying around; he knows they’re mostly of family, Juan Carlos with his parents and brothers on a summer vacation when he was a kid, Juan Carlos being hugged and smothered by his grandparents while he’s wearing his ridiculous, adorable Prince Charming costume for the school’s play, Juan Carlos’ nephews and Vanessa with his mom and a blurry picture of what looks like Sant Joan fireworks out at sea.

But then there’s pictures of friends, and they’re just a handful and inconspicouos enough but that was enough for Pau to realize that no matter how much he likes Juan Carlos, he doesn’t really know him; and he wants to, but he’s not sure he has _the right_ to want that, because he doesn’t mean it strictly in a friendly way and what if Juan Carlos doesn’t want him back, what if the weird-looking dude with the giant smile and the clear eyes that pops out in every other picture got him first, what if—what. the fuck. if.

Pau is kind of upset because he’s not sure he’s ever liked someone so much that he gets scared and worried and anxious. He’s not sure how to ask for what he wants, and he doesn’t want to discover he can’t have it, and it all makes him feel so stupid because what is he, fourteen years old?

Juan Carlos giggles at a very, very terrible joke a bloke so tan that he’s orange just said on TV, and Pau is exactly fourteen, because he fakes a much-needed stretch which ends with his arm over the couch’s headrest, but mostly around Juan Carlos’ shoulders. He thinks he sees Juan Carlos grin, and that throws his heart up into his throat but it also gives him a tiny bit of courage.

His dignity MIA, Pau clears his throat and scoots a little closer—the plate is sitting between them, so he can’t plaster himself to Juan Carlos’ side the way he’d like, but it’s fine, he just got a wonderful, wonderful idea.

But Juan Carlos looks up, and in the bright light of the big TV screen he looks very pale and his eyelashes are very dark and curvy and in his brown eyes, Pau catches speckles of gold and green.

Juan Carlos smiles just a tiny bit, and says, “You should grab some fries, and I’ll grab some fries too and then you can brush your fingers against mine and pretend it was an accident.”

Pau snorts. “You shouldn’t break the fourth wall.”

Juan Carlos does, leaning in to kiss him. His leg is still in Pau’s lap, and Pau reaches out to pull in the other as well—Juan Carlos tilts his head back to mumble something about the plate, but he’s opened his mouth and Pau catches him quickly, his tongue slipping out.

Juan Carlos groans throatily, his hands wrapped in Pau’s hair as he pulls himself up and shifts so that he’s straddling Pau’s legs, and the plate is still sitting there undisturbed. The new position gives him better leverage for the kiss and Pau finds he quite likes, enjoys and straight-out _adores_ the feeling of Juan Carlos’ full beard against his neater goatee.

He wraps his hands around Juan Carlos’ waist and he’s amazed to find his fingers fit almost all the way around; Juan Carlos must’ve noticed too, because he shifts and pushes into his touch a little and nips at his bottom lip.

“I—uh,” he mumbles, brushing the tip of his nose against Pau’s, their heads close enough together that their lips almost touch anyway. “I try not to put out on the first date.”

He’s grinning, and his hips are rocking very subtly, so Pau grins back. “And how’s that going for you?”

Juan Carlos kisses him again, quick and chaste. “Not too well,” he admits. Pau doesn’t really have a type, but he knew he was done for the moment he had a taste of Juan Carlos’ humor. Now, he can’t keep from leaning in and trying to find it on his tongue.

The kiss is lazy and sloppy, Pau arches his back to get more of Juan Carlos pressed down against him and when he does, the way Juan Carlos tugs at the curls behind his ears feels a tiny bit like a promise. Pau would gladly see that fulfilled this very instant, and he thinks he could—get rid of their clothes and run his hands down Juan Carlos’ slim back until he finds the sweet hills of his ass, brush his fingers to the taut hot skin and then wet them, maybe even get Juan Carlos to do that for him, and push them in and watch Juan Carlos blush and moan from the burning sensation of being stretched and not filled up, not even close; and then watch him bite his lip at the emptiness and bite it harder as Pau’s hands on his hips pull him down in an oh so very torturously slow tug, so much that his muscled thigh would shake and his eyes flutter closed in anticipation as he feels and earns every inch of it, every vein and every drop of sweat and every huff of Pau’s breath on his skin; he could dip his hands under the curve where Juan Carlos’ thighs meet his buttocks and pull just a little, stretch him wider just to watch his eyes shoot open and his breath catch in his throat—Pau bites a kiss to the hollow of Juan Carlos’ throat and drinks in the happy moan that escapes his lips.

_I could_ , Pau thinks, and he nuzzles the corner of Juan Carlos’ jaw, the beard softer than he expected, barely a tingle against his skin.

Juan Carlos reaches out to his side, and his hand comes back up with a big curly fry; he bites into it and more than half of it is sticking out of his mouth, hanging loosely over his full bottom lip.

Pau smirks. “My mother taught me not to play with food.”

Juan Carlos rolls his eyes at him with a touch of fondness barely hidden under the fake annoyance, and Pau decides that’s his favourite look in the world.

“No offense to your mom,” Juan Carlos says, the fry held tightly in his mouth. “But I’m a baker. I know exactly what food is for.”

Pau laughs, and leans in to kiss away his half of the fry.  



End file.
